Depths of Both Sides
by historiafan8763
Summary: When the world was swallowed by despair, it was the group called SHSL Despair that led the downfall. But were they really the masterminds, or victims of circumstances? Let me take you to the past and future, to the clash of hope and despair... A one shot series about pre/post SDR2
1. Can you Hear the People Sing?

The Depths of Both Sides

_Do you hear the people sing...?_

(Pre-SDR2. I don't own SDR2.)

* * *

Before the Tragedy, the world turned on the axis of regularity. It was a place that hatred and love mingled together to create emotion. A place where blood ran rampant on one side of the globe, and a celebration of birth on the other. It was far from perfect, but nevertheless, people managed to prosper.

Then a monster called Despair swallowed the world.

The Tragedy- also known as Mankind's Most Despairingly Maleficent and Monstrous Malefaction- seemed to have come out of nowhere. It was like a whirlwind that swept and swallowed the world. The Tragedy was a series of malicious events overlapping each other in a rapid series of fear, anger, death...And most prominently of all, **despair**.

The strong massacred the weak, the weak slaughtered the weaker, and the weaker banded together to kill the strong. People were quickly swept away in the tsunami of tragedy. Helpless civilians were quickly swallowed up by the despair...

* * *

Now, let me tell you about a young Princess named Sonia Nevermind.

This following tale of the Princess might not **seem** to have a visible connection to the Tragedy that I have been referring to...But I assure you, they are most certainly **not** superfluous.

Before the Tragedy that overtook the world, Miss Sonia Nevermind was the Princess of the Kingdom of Novoselic.

She was a young lady- a spritely high schooler- who held the position of royalty since birth. She was a bright and cheerful girl, with a natural aptitude for politics. Although slightly naïve, she had an aura of authority and assertiveness.

She was the treasure of Novoselic, and the most loved Princess in the world. She was even invited to the prestigious Hope's Peak Academy private school- where only the most talented and elite students in the world attended- for how wonderful a Princess she was.

Sonia Nevermind came back to her country from the illustrious Hope's Peak Academy, right after the Tragedy started. Along with the King and Queen, the entire nation warmly and enthusiastically welcomed her back to her homeland.

Why wouldn't they have been? The royal heiress was safe and sound, back where she belonged, instead of romping in another country.

Then, strange things began to happen.

A few weeks after her return, her parents disappeared without a trace.

A nationwide panic occurred. Fear spread upon the masses of Novoselic. Every citizen wondered of the fates of their rulers.

_Where could they have gone? Were they taken by force? If so, how come the guards didn't notice? _Numerous rumors flew, ranging from the pair running away, to abduction by enemy spies.

No one suspected the Princess.

Who would? She was the sweetest girl imaginable. She was their beloved, precious Princess.

Who would suspect the Princess of Novoselic to kill her own parents?

And with the disappearance of her parents, she was the only one left who could rule her country. So she did.

Sonia Nevermind became their Queen.

As soon as she became Queen, the nation changed. Gone was the quaint and charming atmosphere of the lands. Gone was the air of elegance and satisfaction. Gone was the bright cheerfulness that permeated all citizens.

All that was left was a sense of dread...Of **despair**.

Novoselic had become overthrown by Despair- their ruler at the helm, spreading the dreadful plague-like emotion to all her citizens. People quickly lost their common sense, their morals, their sense of justice. People ran rampant- ferocious, wild, violent. They were no more than beasts.

It was as if the entirety of the nation had gotten swept up in an upheaval, a revolution of madness.

But this was far more gruesome, far more violent, and far more dreadful than that.

This was no mere revolution, nor was it war.

This was anarchy, anarchy in its purest, strongest form.

* * *

...But that is not the end of this foolish tale. There is more.

Novoselic became a mad country full of blood-lust and warmongering, led by their equally mad Queen. Terrorists spawned like rabbits, and missiles were launched with regularity.

The situation quickly escalated, as the world veered out of control. When Novoselic became too much of a threat, the other countries did not even bother sending generals, politicians, peacemakers, or armies. Rather, they sent in missiles of their own, in retaliation to the despairing country.

Now...The country named Novoselic does not exist any longer. It can no longer be called a country. It is merely a land full of death and fear, a large ghost-town in the midst of the world.

Among those killed- thousands upon thousands of Novoselic people- the mad Queen was one of the few that survived. The only evidence of her surviving was the absence of her corpse among the ruins of the former country, when the lands were searched and raided.

No one knows what has happened to Sonia Nevermind.

No one knows what she's doing. No one knows what's she's planning. No one knows where she is.

And that, my friends, is the end of this tale.


	2. The Color of Blood

Depths of Both Sides

The Color of Blood

(Post SDR2. I don't own SDR2)

* * *

It was 7 a.m.

The electronic beeping filled the otherwise stagnant air of the room, breaking the dead atmosphere.

A hand slowly rose from under the thin blanket, shutting the shrill alarm off. Rather than immediately jumping out of bed, the man with his awkwardly lanky limbs lay surprisingly languid on the piece of furniture, having already been awake.

His body always woke at five- a habit that he had forcefully taken up by himself, so that he could rise early to tinker on his projects. However it was painfully clear that the days then and days now were different, the anticipation and determination replaced with swallowing, crushing fatigue. It was strange, it felt like so much have occured during the time he was recovering from what the others called, 'brainwashing', while in reality, not much actually happened.

It was to the point where he had almost wanted to crawl over and lay comatose with the other ten, just so he wouldn't have to go through the awful feeling. Almost. He closed his eyes, recalling the conversation what he surmised to be about two weeks ago.

* * *

_"Do you remember the time you spent on Jabberwock Island?" the man outside the confined cell asked him. The prisoner turned away nervously. Looking at the suited man made him sick to his stomach, for reasons he didn't know._

_"I know it's in there. I've already seen it," the man said with such certainty, that it made him jealous. "So you can do it. I'm sure of it._

_Do **what**? He didn't understand- the man should know this, from how lost he looked._

_Why didn't they just end it already...?_

_The man continued to stay, rattling off about something called the 'New World Program', which the tired boy only listened to halfheartedly. What was the point of listening- understanding anything- if he just wanted to disappear...?_

_As he listlessly stared into space, flashes of images flickered into form, like a shaky image in an old TV._

_A sparkling ocean complete with a white beach. Colorful figures so bright it was hard to see them clearly. Wooden, home-like huts. A polished courtroom, full of wooden stands, filled with the same bright figures. Bright, neon pink splotches... _

_He shook his head harshly, shaking away the mirages from his mind. Even so, the images still remained at the corner of his consciousness, occasionally phasing in hazily with a glimpse or two. He didn't bother dispersing it after that, already done caring about this oddly bright, hazy world._

_...Or had he?_

* * *

Rubbing his eyes furiously, he wearily sat in an upright position, his body groaning in protest.

Everything still felt so **surreal** to him; starting from the meagerly furnished room, to the situation he was stuck in. It felt like one wrong touch could send the entire thing evaporating into thin air.

Then he noticed something. Something he couldn't believe he hadn't noted before. Something that almost made his heart stop.

His bed was smeared with pink.

He scrambled out of the thin coverings, tumbling down the bed with a solid _thump_. Heart pounding frantically, he wildly looked around the room. His body felt strange, uncomfortable heat rising from his chest, swamping his entire frame.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew what the source of the smears were. But his mind was on overdrive. A frenzy of poisonous memories filled his pounding head, each one stifling him to the point that he choked on bile.

He ran- rather, it was more stumbling, than running- to the small bathroom. He desperately twisted the shower knob, releasing a waterfall of ice-cold water that pounded upon his thin frame and swept away the wrenching pain in his gut. He tried calming down his stomach, to keep from retching right then and there.

The water- however soothing it was- did nothing for the succession of images bursting in his mind's eye.

_Dying screams, mangled corpses, twisted expressions, an air that spoke of death and despair..._

_And the overlying stench of blood._

He choked, the nonexistent salty fumes clogging his nose. The water that splattered on the floor was pink.

Florescent pink of dye.

Florescent pink of **blood**.

_PLease LET me LIvE._

_Please don't kiLL me, pleASe DON'T KILL ME, PLEASE._

Head pounding from the sound of bullets- that sickening sound when it punctured human flesh- he clawed at the shower tap. The water came down mercilessly, the intense deluge of frigid water freezing him to his bones. But it still wasn't enough.

_One of his past tormenters in middle school reduced to a pile of inner organs and mush._

_A fellow student from Hope's Peak Academy, who gruesomely had his head hacked off by an electronic saw._

_A town laid to waste with automatic weapons, the ground covered with corpses and rotting flesh._

He didn't know he was crying- the tears had mixed well with the icy water- until chest tightened, and his cries caused him to start hyperventilating. Wracking sobs engulfed his body, burning hot tears dripping down onto the tiled floor to mix with the pink water.

Collapsing on to the hard marble floor, he lay there with the shower still pelting him, each drop feeling like pellets of ice rather than water.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, the hoarse words dying as soon it left his throat by the roaring water. Those words he kept on muttering, the same phrase repeating until he didn't know who he was even referring it to.

He kept repeating the worlds, stumbling over them, making them mix together into a garbled mess. Repeating them so much that he kept biting his tongue with his sharp teeth. Repeating them so much, until he realized what it reminded him of, remembering that unbidden memory of him peeking into a dark room of the cramped house all those years ago, where his father sat alone crying, repeating that lonely phrase over and over again.

_Sorry, old man_, Kazuichi Souda thought bleakly, as he painfully bit down on his lip, the rivulets of blood joining the pink on the cold tile. _Guess I didn't keep my promise of growing up to be a good, successful person._


	3. Dance of Death

The Depths of Both Sides

Dance of Death

(Pre-SDR2. I don't own SDR2.)

* * *

_Saionji loved dancing._

_Everything of the buyo, the sensation of silk against her skin, the smell of the polished wooden floors, resonated with a part within her. She felt the most complete when performing, to be one with the stage, the mood, the audience. She loved it all._

_That's why she hated it with all her heart._

At the center of the darkened stage, Saionji stood still like a statue. The audience, ever the un-noticing bystanders, blabbered on. She felt the usual sneer tugging on the corner of her lips, but suppressed it, retaining her mask of false serenity. As she waited, she felt the chains- thick, heavy things that dragged her down.

_It was a stifling summer day, the heat coming in droves. A child in a yellow kimono struggled with her movements, sweat beaded on her forehead. A crone stood next to the child with hawk-like eyes, snapping at every misstep the youngster took. _

Taking deep breaths, she started to move, the metal fetters accompanying her.

_The child was crying, her pitiful wails echoing around the empty house. Her right foot was bleeding, the stream of blood bubbling forth from the tiny puncture wound. She hobbled over to her discarded shoe, gingerly picking up the shiny needle inside. _

The stage was lighted now, with all eyes focused on the dancing figure. Clappers snapped, flutes blew. No one saw the chains.

_She stuck her silver spoon in the brightly colored kakigori, eyes glowing. Just as she was going to put a spoonful in her mouth, she paused. Underneath the shaved icing, the spoon was black._

She swept her arms, making the oversized sleeves billow, while the crowd _oohed_ and _aahed_. It was child's play to pull out the fan from inside her sleeve, even with the heavy bonds. Just a quick sleight of hand and the crowd gasped like fish out of water.

How pathetic.

_"Why can't you stay?" she whined, tears springing up in the corner of her eyes. _

_A pause. Then, a simple "I'm sorry." _

_She was crying now, her tears blurring the outline of the man standing in front of her. "Your grandmother's not going to like it if she knows I'm here," he stated, flashing a warm smile. "Your performance is next week, right? Dances aren't my thing, but I'll definitely come, okay?" _

_He never came._

She felt all her worries, all her emotions, simply fly away. All that remained was the flow of the music and the thrum of the air. But the chains remained.

_She'd heard the spiteful whispers of the remaining household, everywhere, as long as she could remember. _

_"Why is an unconventional like _her_ the heir? The Buyo's all about being graceful, not flitting about the stage!" "They say she's like a sparrow. Ha! An ant more like." "Her fans are only teenage boys, you know? Figures." _

_They hated her, and all she could do was to hate them back. So she did._

_When she was eleven, she put a needle in each and every one of their shoes. _

She wanted those chains off.

_When the school called her grandmother for bullying, she expected to get scolded. When she came home, however, her grandmother only commented on the performance that was due two days later._

_She didn't care about her grandchild. Only her dancing. _

She wanted them off NOW!

_Snap!_ went the fan, and the ceiling shrieked in delight. The overhead lights above the audience twisted as the prepared mini-bombs on the cables went off, plunging the heavy machinery to the ground.

_Swish!_ went the fabric of her sleeves, with the chorus of screams and squelches of body parts replacing the harmony of the notes.

She no longer cared about her expression, a wide grin disfiguring her rigid mask. She was free, finally free.

There was no more music or life left in the music hall. Still, she kept on dancing, the bright, bright red cherry blossoms on her kimono seemingly turning into a scarlet blur.

_Dancing took everything from something she could have had. Her parents, her childhood, the share of love for her. _

_It wasn't the fault of the traditional dance, though. No- the people who made her dance were the ones at fault. __**They**__ were the ones who took her life away._

_So she was going to destroy the ones that destroyed her._

And thus the dance of death continued.


End file.
